All societies have self-preservation and perpetuation as their primary goal. All other objectives are secondary to these. The most natural and logical way to achieve these goals is to encourage the activities that most contribute to those objectives, and that is the reason all societies have elevated male/female marital relations as exemplary, and have offered inducements to encourage them. All societies engage in the encouragement or suppression of behavioral choices as a means of controlling the positive or negative impact of those behaviors.
Marital relationship preferences are not unchangeable or immutable attributes as is the case for origin of birth, or skin color, or handicap, but rather they are the result of behavioral tendencies similar in nature to all other naturally occurring human tendencies. These tendencies may be either encouraged or suppressed either by the individual or by life circumstances, and therefore they do not merit specific civil rights status.
Many societies, ours included, have agreed to extend specific civil rights and protections on the basis of immutable human attributes, including skin color, origin of birth, sex, and more. These protections are designed to ensure an equal basis for opportunity, not to elevate one behavioral choice or physical condition over any other.
We live in a representative republic with strong emphasis on personal liberty and freedom, but with the recognition that our liberties and freedoms are not to infringe on the rights of others. Therefore, if a private party, or private business, or a church wishes to engage in and reward activities based on behavioral preferences they should be free to do so, so long as there is no negative impact on those who choose not to participate.
Government sanction and endorsement of any specific personal choices would negatively impact other individuals who do not agree with or support those choices through the taxation and regulation required to support their imposition and enforcement. I am in agreement with this for immutable human attributes, but I am opposed to it for personal choices.
If a society chooses to go beyond protecting immutable attributes and begins granting protection for individually chosen behavior or lifestyle choices, there can never be a legal basis for denying any other choices, no matter how outrageous or detrimental to society, due to the entirely subjective nature of individual freedom of choice. In fact, if the so-called Hate Crimes bill in the US Congress today passes as is, there will be new protections specifically for Pedophiles and other clearly deviant behavior. Homosexual marriage is the beginning of the agenda of behavioral rights protections, not the end, and those pushing it know this well.
I am not basing my arguments here on religious or moral grounds, but rather on my understanding of the requirements of our government as defined by our Constitution and the Bill of Rights. I am not homophobic any more than I am smokerphobic or drinkerphobic or any other kind of lifestylephobic. I would no sooner be willing to endorse government recognition through specific civic or marital rights for two smokers or two drinkers or two golfers any more than I would for two homosexuals. If enough people can be persuaded otherwise, that is our free republic at work, but I will not support any government endorsement of homosexual marriage and will not vote for those who do.
Filed under: Random Thoughts
